You Must Remember This, a Kiss Is Still a Kiss
by Scribbler17
Summary: A different take on Iris's first kiss.


"I guess in my mind, you'll always be Barry, and I'll always be Iris. And we always find each other," she declares.

Where her head rests against the wooden beams of the porch stairs, Iris nods with a hint of finality, an attempt to convince herself that going along with the team's collective decision to remain unaware of the obscure other timeline Barry induced and experienced was the best course of action to take for everyone.

"We do always find each other," Barry confirms, his voice earnest. "Not just in your mind."

Iris goes still. She thought she was satisfied, but now she wishes Barry didn't say anything further. She can sense her curiosity beginning to unfurl the way it always does when something strikes her fancy. Her inquisitiveness had always been her greatest strength and biggest weakness. It's certainly accounted for her respectable reputation in investigative journalism, but she acknowledges she still has trouble figuring out when the desire to know is unwarranted.

Barry's eyes crinkle affectionately. "You want to know, don't you?"

She sighs, accepting defeat. Of course Barry was going to read her like one of his theoretical physics books. "I would be lying if I said no, but maybe in this case, ignorance is bliss?" she offers.

Barry watches her solemnly before turning his head to face the street before them, quietly contemplative. He's still looking away when he finally speaks: "My mom and dad were alive."

Iris nods. That much, she had expected. After all, the whole reason he had traveled through time was to prevent his mother's murder. The only guarantee that could have kept him in that timeline for three months was the livelihood of his parents.

She can see tears glistening in his eyes and consequently feels a stab of regret for having him recall the memory of his parents alive and well when they weren't presently.

She reaches for his hand. "It's okay, Barry. You don't have to talk about it."

"No, I want to," he affirms, looking her in the eye again, squeezing her palm back. The tears have fallen down his cheeks by now, but the corners of his lips have also turned upward, giving warmth to the shine of his pupils.

"They were alive, healthy, happy," he continues before beaming. "And they loved you."

For a moment, Iris isn't sure she heard him correctly.

"They-your mom-met me?" she wonders, feeling an unusual but not unpleasant flutter in her stomach at the prospect of being in Nora Allen's presence. She cherished Barry's mother just on account of being the woman who gave him life. That's how ardently she loved him.

Barry's smile only widens, reaching his eyes which take her in with sheer devotion. "Of course," he states matter-of-factly. Then more seriously, "You think I was going to pass up a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, quite literally, to introduce my mother to the person who taught me what love is?"

Iris feels her own eyes well with tears. "Barry…"

He sniffs, glances downward at their joint hands, caressing the back of hers with his thumb. "It's one thing that always tormented me, not only that my mom would never get to know me, but that she would never get to know you too."

She manages a tiny smile through her weeping, touched at his sentiment. She can't help however that her curiosity is in full-range again.

"So…that must mean that we were-what? Together?" she inquires cautiously.

Barry laughs, and Iris is pleased that he isn't taking her questioning to be insensitive. "Not quite." His eyes twinkle: "But I think we were headed in that direction."

Iris smirks. "You seem pretty confident there, Flash," she teases, taking advantage of their linked hands to pinch him gently.

"We always find each other," he says simply, shrugging. "Your words, not mine."

Silence befalls them. As much as she wants to learn more about this cryptic timeline he had lived, she also wants to bask in the ease of the here and now with him. Even with the tame nighttime chirping of crickets, Iris can hear the assuring rhythm of Barry's soft respirations, a comforting sound. She leans her head back against the wood, closes her eyes, thinks she could fall asleep in the peace of sitting with him on the porch, listening to him breathe.

An earlier memory from the week strikes her, and a profound realization suddenly hits. While she thinks she can wait to hear about the rest of his journey through time, she finds there's one thing she needs to know now, prompting her to open her eyes to find Barry studying her carefully.

"That's what you were talking about at STAR Labs," Iris marvels.

Barry blinks. "What?"

"A few days ago, when I wanted to make sure you still felt the same about…us," she manages, disliking the reduction of all that was between them to a brief pronoun. "You said you did what I told you to do. You went where you needed to go and did what you needed to do…that was changing the timeline, wasn't it?"

Barry hesitates before swallowing audibly. "Yes," he nods.

Iris frowns. "But I don't understand. I don't remember telling you that."

Barry fidgets uncomfortably, letting go of her hand to play with his fingers. She knows him well enough to recognize the turn the conversation is taking has him in a nervous frenzy.

"Barry, is there something I should know?" she coerces patiently.

He exhales loudly. "You deserve the truth, Iris."

Immediately, she freezes, her mind considering every horrible possibility: someone she cared for was hurt in some timeline he had been in, or worse, dead. Maybe her friends were complete strangers to her in another life. Perhaps Barry loved someone else, despite his declaration that they always found each other.

"What is it?" she whispers.

Barry must have noticed her visible tension, because he moves to hold her hand again with a small grin on his face. "Relax, Iris. I know what you're thinking." And in actuality, Barry probably did know what she was thinking. She has years of knowing each other to thank for that.

Iris breathes a sigh of relief. "You scared me there for a minute," she chuckles nervously.

"There's nothing to be scared of," he promises, clutching her fingers more tightly, and the resolve in his tone makes her believe him. "It's just…if we're going to do this, if we really want to try and see where this thing between us goes, we can't do it without an honest start."

He takes a deep breath: "In that other timeline, the one we were living in before I went back and stopped Reverse Flash from killing my mom, some time after my father's funeral, we were sitting on these very steps one night, the same night we finished Zoom.

"You told me you were ready to be with me," he recalls. "And I wanted to be ready too, Iris. I wanted to…but I was too broken for you.

"I couldn't give you of myself, certainly not what you deserved. And instead of leaving me, you promised me you would wait for me. You told me to do whatever I had to do to find my peace."

Iris listens keenly, not daring to move. Even though Barry had told her not to worry, there's nothing she can do to control her frantic pulse.

"I realize now that I twisted what you said, used it to justify a selfish decision that you, Joe, Cisco, everyone had to pay the price for." Tears appear in his eyes for the second time tonight. "And I don't know if I deserve forgiveness for that…"

"I forgive you, Barry," she utters simply without thinking, with all the conviction she can muster, because as much as she feels it, she needs him to believe it. All she wanted from him was honesty, and that's what he was giving her.

He looks unconvinced through his watery gaze: "You do?"

She takes his other hand, can't suppress the urge to touch him, to be even closer to him. "Barry, listen to me. I forgive you," she repeats.

It consoles her to see his that his expression is noticeably less tortured.

Another tangible quiet envelopes them. It isn't uncomfortable, and although Barry has stopped crying, Iris doesn't like the idea of him ruminating silently over his mistake.

"What happened next?" she prompts gently, hoping to take him out of his head.

Barry surveys her intently. Something about the way his eyes bore into her starts her wild heartbeat again.

"What?" Iris asks.

Where is affect had just been tearful, Barry abruptly smirks, and Iris senses her cheeks heating at how much the devilish grin suits his boyish features.

She doesn't get a chance to ponder the reason behind the sudden mischief in his face, because his inching forward and sliding his hand from where it held hers up to her thigh tells her why.

Now Iris is sure the heat across her face has escalated to a transparent blush. She glances down briefly at his hand resting on her leg before forcing herself to meet his gaze again. His lashes are so close that she can see they're still laced with the remnants of dry tears, enhancing the jade glint of his eyes.

"Barry…" she breathes, attempting to maintain at least a semblance of self-control, which is proving difficult now that the delicate freckles splashed across his nose are visible. "What happened next?"

"I'm trying to show you." And then his lips are on hers, and Iris forgets about everything, forgets that they're on a porch, forgets that her father and brother are a window away. She forgets what they were discussing, forgets about speed, forgets the existence of other timelines. All she can register is the soft of Barry's lips, the slip of his tongue, the slight stretch of his smile as he kisses her.

The first coherent thought that crosses her mind after Barry pulls away (she certainly wasn't going to be the one to put an end to such bliss) is that while she forgives him for going back in time, she's not sure she can forgive him for erasing any moment he's ever kissed her, from any chronology of time.


End file.
